Are Bradbury’s Two 2006 OLC Opinions Still Active?
Help me do the math on this for a second.
On April 15, 2009 (just one day before the release of them), OLC withdrew the August 1, 2002 Bybee Two memo, the May 10, 2005 Techniques memo, the May 10, 2005 Combined memo, and the May 30, 2005 CAT memo.
On April 21, 2009, Spencer reported on the July 20, 2007 memo authorizing dietary manipulation, sleep deprivation, and four coercive techniques; SSCI reported on it officially the next day, April 22.
That memo was withdrawn on June 11, 2009.
But unless I’m mistaken, Bradbury’s two memos from August 31, 2006 remain in place (one, two). These memos authorize six conditions of confinement: blocking detainee vision, isolation, white noise, 24-hour light, shackling, and forced shaving.
While several of those are used in domestic prisons, the others–and the techniques used in combination–seem pretty transparently designed to achieve the kind of disorientation achieved by sensory deprivation even while claiming not to be doing so. The techniques, used in combination, could easily be sleep deprivation and/or stress positions in disguise. The memos claim to need these techniques precisely because these detainees are not held in real prisons, which they could be, if the CIA were not so secretive with its program. Moreover, the memos appear to be bound by the same pained logic as Bradbury’s earlier memos and indeed relys on some of the same propaganda documents in their logic. If we’re going to authorize shackles and isolation, let’s do it with a sincere concern for safety and security, not one used to pretty up a coercive philosophy that remains in place.
By all means keep these detainees in secure facilities. But let’s do so without retaining the twisted logic of the Bush Administration.
Marcy: This has nothing to do with Bradbury, but I could not find an email address to contact you. This is about today’s news of Christie’s NJ motor vehicle violations in 2005. I was linked to it via Atrios.
When I lived in NJ in the mid-80’s they had very strict enforcement of uninsured driving offenses. Christie in my opinion based on my experience of NJ laws got very accommodating treatment. Most folks in his situation would have had their car impounded. Additionally, NJ at one time would (and may still) bill Christie a hefty $350 surcharge for the uninsured offense. Long after I moved out of the state in 1985 they were calling me in 2003 to pay a surcharge for the same offense. Uninsured driving was typically an automatic 6 month suspension and Christie’s registration is automatically rescinded once his vehicle is reported as uninsured by his insurance carrier. So, this definitely needs to be looked into.
OK. I looked at the tickets.
He was nailed in Lambertville (across the Delaware river from New Hope, PA) for 58 in a 40 zone (39:4-98 is speeding), Failure to have insurance (39:6B-2) and 39:3-4 (unregistered vehicle).
This is a common constellation of tickets, and corresponds to getting pulled over for speeding and then finding “I left the documentation in my wife’s purse/at home/in the other car/the dog ate it.” In that situation, you’re going to get the 6B-2 and the 3-4 because those are the more “serious” tickets, and then you get to work them out when you get to court. The penalties for a 6B-2 are huge: for a first offense it’s a fine between $350-$1000, up to 30 days community service and a year’s suspension of your driver’s license. For a second and subsequent offense, the fine is $5,000, 14 days in jail (no discretion), 30 days community service and a two-year suspension. For a first DWI, by contrast, you get a 7 month suspension (plus fines and other stuff).
He worked a plea deal to “Unsafe driving” (39:4-97.2) and “Failure to exhibit documents” (39:3-29), and the “no insurance” and “unregistered vehicle” were merged into the “failure to exhibit documents”.
This is a common resolution of this constellation of tickets. Go to a random municipal court and you’ll see this two or three times a week.
The gist of the “failure to exhibit documents” being a resolution of the “no insurance” and the “unregistered vehicle” is that you do have to show up in court and bring the documentation with you to prove that (a) you did in fact have insurance on the date of the ticket and (b) the vehicle was in fact registered to you on that date. The elements of the “failure to exhibit documents” charge are that you did have the required insurance and registration (or whatever document you were missing) but you did not exhibit it to the cop at the time as required. This, as opposed to you did not have the insurance or registration.
The unsafe driving (4-97.2) is a catch-all sort of charge which was instituted about 10 years ago to allow pleading out minor traffic offenses where there was no injury and avoid both bad driver points to the driver and extended trials for the courts. Prior to that, a different statute (4-215 “obstructing traffic”) was a favorite because it was also a zero-points offense, but they decided too many false factual bases were being entered into the record (e.g., “I drove 85 in a 55 and knew I was obstructing traffic”), so much so that they forbade plea bargains to 4-215. The bar responded by taking (actually, threatening to take) all tickets for everything to trial, and the Legislature responded within weeks with 4-97.2, which facilitates plea bargaining for the occasional violator.
4-97.2 is written so that you get two violation of 4-97.2 “free” of points, and then with the third one you get 4 points.
4-97.2 proved so popular that after a couple years the State recognized a revenue source and imposed a surcharge on it to make some more money off violators, such that a 4-97.2 will cost you about $550 between the fine, costs, and surcharge. But, that is still considerably cheaper than the damage a couple points for speeding would do to your car insurance.
FWIW, we call 4-97.2 “Driving while stupid”. It’s getting that name colloquially in the public, too.
As to letting him drive off, the cop will be able to run your D/L and your plate though the terminal in his patrol car and determine that (a) you are who you say you are and (b) the car is registered to you. That would explain how they let him drive off. I have no doubt that the cop likely saw Christie’s badge when he opened his wallet and that that factored in, but you’d never get the cop to admit that.
THe cops admit that he told them who he was.
There’s also the question (and I didn’t look at the tickets) of whether his wife and kids were really with him and Brown in the car–which was reported to be a sedan? As the radio host said, Christie can barely fit in a sedan alone, much less with at least 4 others.
Whatever, I think the reason this is out there is to focus more attention on Christie and Brown. I’m not crazy making a stink about any non DWI car violation–Corzine, after all, famously didn’t wear his seatbelt. It looks like Christie was bigfooting the cops, which has ended the careers of others in NJ. But I think there’s plenty to beat up Christie for without beating him up over his registration. THough I thought the car ALSO wasn’t insured?
Fine -so he told the cops who he was. I suspect they already knew who Chris Christie was – NJ is not that big a state such that they might not know who the US attorney was. And, as I said upthread, I have little doubt they saw his badge when he pulled out his wallet. See a badge – partiocularly a gold one like US Attorneys get – on a civilian and the natural thing for a cop to do is ask what it is and how you got to have it.
As to who was in the car with him – the ticket would not show that. There is no space for that information in the ticket. If there had been an accident, they would have been noted on the police report – but there was no accident.
As to the sedan bit – the tickets do show that it was a four door Chevy.
Now to the interesting (on second viewing) bits. The first view of the tickets does not reveal anything of mroe than passing interest.
1. Each of the tickets has written on them, in the lower right hand corner, a court date. In this case, October 20, 2005.
On the reverse of the tickets is the date teh disposition was entered – February 16, 2006. This is a long time to resolve these tickets, but not necessarily an unreasonable length of time to resolve simple tickets like these. You can get adjournments and the cycle for adjournments is often on the order of six weeks. In other words, if you get a court date of October 20, you could ask for an adjournment and it would likely get pushed back to early December. Another adjournment (b/c of pressing law enforcement busines or something) would put you into February. I can see these tickets getting adjourned because of any number of things, not the least of which might havebeen plea negotiations or scheduling problems. But, now we go to something more interesting
2. Look at the “expiration date” on the tickets about 1/3 of the way down, where it says
(plate number) RMA56B (state) NJ (Month/year)7/05
the next line is “offense date”: 9/24/05
In other words, his registration was two months overdue.
I don’t think he should have been allowed to have just driven away after getting the ticket. Discretionary call on the cop’s part.
NJ is pretty good about getting the registratrion materials out in the mail a good two months before the end of the registration, i.e., if your registraton expires at the end of July, you’ll get your renewal form in the mail by early May. And, all it takes to renew a registration is to fil out the form (the size of an IBM card, for the oldsters in the audience) and write a check (about $50 more or less, depending on the car) and drop it in the mail. In other words, a 5 minute job, if that. But, he didn’t and he hadn’t. (I’m starting to see a pattern of Christie not complying with reporting and registration requirements here. Are you, too?) This doubtless led to
3. On each of the tickets, written down the side, is the handwritten text “NO DEAL”.
This I take to mean that someone on the prosecution side – either the cop or the prosecutor – wanted to make clear that there was to be no plea bargain here. Which, in turn, would indicate that maybe Christie got all the break they thought he should get in the way the tickets were written.
One of the tickets also notes that he already had at least one, and possibly two, “driving while stupid” citations, i.e., “Unsafe operation”. This is where someone (it appears to have been the judge) wrote “2/16/06 pros to discuss w/D increase [something] because 2d unsafe operation”
What looked like a superficially “Clean” plea deal may, on closer inspection, be a little less than clean.
Scribe: That sounds somewhat reasonable. In 1980 I recall these violations as non-negotiable if a driver was knowingly driving uninsured. I am not debating any scenario where the driver was insured, but had no documents. Once the insurance lapses, the carrier sends that info to DMV and the registration is no longer valid. The vehicle owner gets a mailed transmittal generated by DMV system computers. Did Christie “in fact” have insurance in force?
Since neither of those 2 OLC opinions are listed as among those officially withdrawn at the OLC website, I’d have to guess that they are still in effect.
And I agree with you that they are more than a bit disingenuous to be labeled as applying merely to “conditions of confinement” when they are in fact methods used to “enhance” interrogations.
EW,
You should go to law school.
WHy go to law school? I have a D after my name, one that has trained me quite well–perhaps better than a JD would have–in close reading!
I love my job so it’s like a J instead of Ph would get me anything.
Who said anything about studying at a law school? How about teaching at one?
God knows you’ve taught the lawyers around here a thing or two.
Actually, being a J.D. myself, I suspect your Ph. D. gets you more respect than a J.D. would.
No one calls us lawyers “Doctor”, even though they can and even though some of the most pretentious among us do call themselves “Doctor”. But ordinarily Ph. D.s do get called “Doctor”, when thethe Ph. D. comes up.
And that still carries a good chunk of weight in perceptions.
Oh, I dunno. No one calls you a Piled Higher and Deeper. And I think a lot of PhDs have a tough time explaining their worth to the rest of the world.
I got my JD very early in life, and my mom thwacked the crap out of me with a branch from the tree out back. Told me being a juvenile delinquent was nothing to aspire to. Man was she right about that JD; but I didn’t learn, I went out and got another one in college…..
Try spalin an EdD!
Or an Ed.S.
I got a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin.
(No,no,no– B.S. = Bachelor of Science.)
Bob from HI in AZ
Or an ABD. (Do Americans use the term?)
Yes.
Yes.
Bob from HI in AZ
you nailed that one, ew, about phd’s not getting respect. except in the rest of the world they do; it’s just here in the good ol’ us of a where we’re less than ‘real’ doctors, and all academics are less than businessmen.
go figure. likely the harbinger of doom for our national demise, but there it is.
Don’t let it get to ya, it’s all bullshit.
Heya! That’s piled pretty high and deep …
oh, god knows i don’t take it personally. still, i worked pretty darn hard for it and the work means something valuable to me.
tho sure, it’s all BS to a great extent, and god also knows there are tons of seriously psycho academics running loose out there. still, i have to consciously keep my ire in check when the know-nothings — and proud of it, professionals and rednecks alike — demand like spoiled brats to spew all that they don’t know, and it’s predictably just a vile and vicious brain fart.
they would find my attitude just as predictable, i’m sure, except it’s not the know-nothing part i object to, as i am constantly chastened by how little i know; it’s the vile and vicious, entitled, spoiled demands that get to me. i cannot think straight, therefore i screech loudly.
sigh.
Hey –
At least a PhD’s a REAL doctorate, not a technical degree like an MD…
(and I say that with the GREATEST possible respect for MDs).
One of my M.D.s once commented, after seeing that I had a Ph.D., something to the effect that “Oh, you’re a real doctor!” I guess he didn’t have that much respect for his own degree.
Bob from HI in AZ
But you J.D.s get to use that notorious vestige of the peerage after your names, ESQUIRE.
“Hey SQUIRE, do you know Oily Titz, ESQ.?”
Didn’t you know? The Wheel House is a graduate seminar in law. Marcy learns more here in the comments than she would in most law schools. And so do we. The main difference, as far as I can see, is that the lessons stick in her mind better than they do in mine.
Bob from HI in AZ
It is that tropical air, it turns your mind to the beach not the law!
I suppose I can see where blindfolding prisoners outside their cells would qualify as addressing security concerns in a relatively low-security place.
But white noise? What is that supposed to accomplish, besides driving prisoners nuts?
I think there is real concern. There was an instance where detainees in–I think–Florence Super Max were communicating via pipes. But the memo seems to excuse the noise in cells, at what counts as “loud” volume. Which seems to me like a decision to use the noise to block out any anchors in time.
“I think there is real concern. There was an instance where detainees in–I think–Florence Super Max were communicating via pipes.”
Here is what I keep coming back to. 8/31/2006 is OLC to CIA telling them why CIA use of, among other things, white noise, constant light, and shackles in Black Sites do not violate GC Article 3. The basic claim is that OLC states that CIA has said those are only used for security reasons so it’s all OK.
But previously in OLC to DOJ 1/15/05 on page 13 all of those items are listed as interrogation techniques.
How can OLC on 8/31/06 claim that OLC thinks those techniques are only used for security when on 1/15/05 OLC itself listed them as interrogation techniques? (And does OLC claim never to have seen AGC to DOJ 12/30/04 describing in detail how those techniques are used in interrogation?)
Yes, precisely my point, though made much better than I’m apparently making it.
The same techniques don’t magically become security measures by flourish of Steven Bradbury’s pen. And that–as opposed to some but not all of the techniques–is my complaint.
I guess in lieu of finding something that withdraws them, they are in effect. Keep in mind, too, that Bradbury has received an assist from Congress via the MCA on this topic.
A part of the MCA specifically says that:
Now granted, you might claim that the Congressional action to take away habeas failed (via the Boumediene case) – otoh, I haven’t seen any court yet try to do anything (like issue contempt against a lawyer or his bosses) to enforce their habeas orders. I guess saying that a judge can order release, but Obama just doesn’t have to follow that order, is kinda sorta something.
How limited the Congressional action might be deemed to be (GITMO and military bases vs. blacksites) and whether it holds is still out there – I think there are GITMO conditions of confinement cases pending. Obviously someone like el-Masri got his butt kicked out of court on his torture victims complaint, so I don’t know how likely it is you’re going to get a court to entertain anything.
However, to dig into deeper formations, you have to keep in mind that most of our conditions of confinement cases (not all) have to do with post-judgment confinement in a civilian criminal setting. In a war setting, where you are talking (I know they are going to say you are talking about terrorists, but they never make being a terrorist a “real” condition precedent to the opinions) about people not being charged with any crime, to say that post-judgment condition of confinment cases are appropos isn’t really clear. As I mentioned on the rendition issue (where you are covered in a civilian criminal law setting for kidnapping someone to bring them to trial – but the Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit taking a protected person out of country as a severe breach and war crime) DOJers didn’t seem to realize that sometimes you might “lose” rather than gain by opting for a military law setting, bc they didn’t process military law as law and instead viewed it as a way to operate in the absence of law.
So knowing that they are looking at a common article three standard for all kinds of wartime detention of even protected persons when they approach the conditions of confinement issue (as opposed to a test that is premised on someone having been charged or convicted with a crime) means they may or may not be opting onto firmer ground if a court did look at it.
I think scribe had a really good comment awhile back on conditions of confinement, pre and post judgment, and some considerations.
BC it was ez to find, here’s a link to a case involving someone later convicted for involvement in the embassy bombings who had made some pretrial conditions of confinement claims and how the court dealt with them
http://www.uniset.ca/other/cs5/213F3d74.html
I think you will see huge deference to anything the Exec says to even tangentially support a “why” for the conditions, with language that seems to hold them to a standard that never really has to be met.
.
I’m getting in a fairly depressed state where I can readily see a lot of courts after how things have been handled so far saying that getting intelligence was a legitimate penological interest that allowed for very broad abuse in confinement. I’d like to think otherwise, but I don’t.
this is pretty disturbing. Don’t know if you guys saw this yet:
http://www.politico.com/news/s…..26437.html
I am way late to the game. That story is a day old. Sorry about that.
Well, that’s alright; it’s always a good time to beat up on Brennan.
haha! Don’t start without me!
Ouch
Well, he does look like Jabba the Hutt. But not in the face.
Regarding CofC, I wonder whether any newly-installed Obama person ever looked over the list of memos at the top, including the Bradbury wonders, and sent out one of their own to whomever suggesting that they just start over with establishing the conditions (and the basis for them if really necessary; one would think also that standard conditions would need a minimum of such palaver)?
It somehow seems like a natural thing for someone having done the reading to have done, or even to have been assigned to do.
I don’t think the memo was active ever, it’s against the law, it’s not an actual analysis of our law and as far as I’m concerned these memos cannot affect policy at all
those people relying on these memos are criminals, those officials who authored the memos are even more criminal
OT and dated – but while the IG can’t quite empirically trace what info we got “because of” vs. “in spite of” torture; and while no one seems to be asking for any facts and figures related to incorrect information and torture, here’s something we know we got from our torture of Khalid el-Masri:
http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Th…..250194504/
This was one I remember when the bust went down as one of the epic black bag jobs of all time.
According to the allegations at the time, these guys were going to make explosives with large quantities of 35% strength hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). They had gotten literally barrels full of the stuff (how – who knows? Ordering this stuff likely has a big red flag attached to it that runs right to police HQ. But I digress) and stored them in their hideout – the garage of a vacation house in a rural part of Germany. They apparently had been made all along, and the house was bugged. Then, to prevent anything untoward from happening, one day when these guys went out, the Germans burgled the place, pumped all the 35% explosive strength H2O2 out of the barrels in the garage and replaced it with hair bleach strength (3%) H2O2, this being literally useless for making things go boom.
This plot was also revealed in something resembling a Bushite/Rovian propaganda move. One weekend, Merkel’s CDU had a “Parteitag”, literally a convention, but not a convention in the sense of our quadrennial political conventions. More like a quarterly or semiannual caucus meeting. This took place in the city of Hanau, about 15 miles east of Frankfurt. Come Monday-Tuesday, the big raid arresting these guys takes place and hits the papers. Their hideout had been in the Sauerland, a mountainous area about 60 or 70 miles northeast of Hanau, near Kassel. Then it came out they had been casing US military installations as targets. The location of those installations?
Hanau.
Immediate CDU conniption and demands for more and stronger laws againt brown people and Muslims.
Let’s not forget that, by the time this came out, it had already been decided (and public) for some time that US installations in Hanau would be closing down as part of the US’s realignment of its forces and their basing.
But, it was clear that the target of the PR was not the US, but rather Germany’s own politicos.
Of course, to get any of this, you have to listen to German radio news in German. Here, you just get the predigested editorially-shaped “news” that Corporate America wants heard.
The Toronto Paintball
18131211 is a very close parallel to the Hanau/Sauerland case. There were agents provocateurs, one of them, the interestingly talky one, involved enough that you had to wonder. Most of the kids involved had no idea what their training in the woods, playing paintball, was all about. The Mounties switched the fertilizer-based explosives at time of sale. And then one good propaganda day, every police force available, federal, provincial, municipal, swooped in and arrested the whole bunch, major media in hyperventilating attendance.That was June 2006. The trials since have become embarrassing. Perhaps two or three of the remaining defendants actually were politically radicalized and intended … something, but it’s very hard to tell any longer. As a friend once said of another propaganda exercise by our government, the authorities in this case took a small half-truth and blew it up until it became a great big lie.
ew wrote:
“But unless I’m mistaken, Bradbury’s two memos from August 31, 2006 remain in place (one, two). These memos authorize six conditions of confinement: blocking detainee vision, isolation, white noise, 24-hour light, shackling, and forced shaving.”
those tortures apply to conditions used to torture american citizen jose padilla,
except, possibly, the “forced shaving” (of what?).
where was the padilla case at this time?
Semi-OT: Tim Rutten on ‘let’s just forget about all those past crimes, because we need to move forward’.
If I try writing a letter to Ye Eds on this, it’s going to have scorch marks and a distinct odor of smoke (apart from that caused by the area’s fires).
I dunno, my brother
ishas a hood. (Ornamental Horticulture: he does research on getting plants to grow with less water.)On April 21, 2009, Spencer reported on the July 20, 2007 memo authorizing dietary manipulation,
————————————————–
Inmates in Illinois are being subjected to dietary manipulations and there is a lawsuit:
Inmates suffering from the soy diet are urged to file grievance reports and to write respectful letters to Judge Harold Baker referring to Harris et al. v. Brown, et al., Case No. 3:07-cv-03225 describing the health problems caused by the soy diet and requesting a permanent injunction against the serving of soy foods in prison meals.
Honorable Harold Baker
United States District Court Judge for the Central District of Illinois
338 U.S. Courthouse
201 South Vine Street
Urbana, IL 61802
***************************
Sample Letter Sent by a Relative of an Inmate
[Date]
Honorable Eric Holder, Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20530
Copy to:
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Special Counsel
U.S. Department of Justice
Northern District of Illinois
Federal Building
219 South Dearborn Street, 5th Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Dear Sirs:
I am writing to request that you initiate an investigation and enforcement action under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 United States Code Section 1997a, also known as the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA).
*snip*
http://westonaprice.org/press/press-13jul09.html
Open letter to Obama – pdf
http://westonaprice.org/soy/obama-letter.pdf
From the first link above:
Next Target, Children?
“Unless we can succeed in obtaining a permanent injunction against the serving of soy in prisons,” says Fallon, “we can expect to see more and more soy in institutional meals. Children are the next targets.” Fallon cites an Illinois school district pilot lunch program that is using textured soy protein instead of meat in popular dishes such as chili, spaghetti sauce, lasagna and imitation chicken nuggets.
“Soy foods and soy milk contain plant estrogens that cause endocrine disruption as well as components that block the uptake of protein and the utilization important vitamins and minerals,” says nutritionist Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food. “Consumed in large amounts, soy foods can lead to serious reproductive and thyroid problems as well as malnutrition. Soy is totally unacceptable as a major food source, especially for growing children. The Israeli Health Ministry in 2005 warned its citizens that children should not eat soy foods or drink soy milk more than once per day or more than 3 times per week. It also advised adult men to exercise caution because of adverse effects on fertility.”
“Soy contains plant estrogens and other factors that may contribute to infertility problems for these school children later in life” says Fallon. “To regularly feed food products full of anti-fertility agents to young children and young men is unconscionable.”
————————————————————-
Ensure is full of soy.
It is not made with real milk, just milk protein; there is no lactose in these products. There is also the ever-present corn as the lead ingredient, and as it’s not organic, it’s probably genetically engineered.
I guess this is the answer to my question:
And as I said then, perhaps this was the reason:
I think there were actually TWO people subjected to extreme sleep deprivation in 2007: one in August, and one in November.
And yes, they say specifically in a footnote that information as to the whereabouts of OBL or Zawahiri would count.
And why is something that is ‘permitted’ in domestic prisons automatically legal? Permitting something and having it be legal are two different animals entirely.